Rias watched from the side as the rabbit girl Alex brought back two weeks ago sparred against her older sister, with Yue right next to her giving occasional advice to the rabbit girl. Rias ignored Yue and focused on the rabbit as she went toe to toe with Grayfia, even after her sister already promoted to her rook piece. She truly couldn't believe the difference two weeks made when it came to Shia, not only did her attitude moderately improve, but she now seemed to be utilizing tons of strength after being strictly drilled every day. She could now see that Shia would make a perfect rook for their team, even though it meant another woman would be joining them. Soon another person walked up and joined them, standings to Rias's side as he watched the ongoing battle, alternating his focus on the maid outfit of Grayfia and the rabbit ears of Shia.
"Are they going to be going for a while? I need to give something to Shia." Hajime said to Rias, as Yue still held a grudge against him for the Loli grandma comment. Both girls looked at him curiously, as Hajime shrugged and said,
"It's something Alex had me make her." After hearing that Alex was behind Hajime's actions, Yue immediately called the sparring match to an end, and both women made their way over. Hajime held his empty hand out as Shia approached, and a large hammer suddenly appeared in it from the storage ring. Shia took the hammer and staggered slightly from the weight of it until she reapplied her 'physical reinforcement' and it became a lot lighter. She swung it around a bit as Hajime explained,
"Alex had me make that for you, it's called Doryukken. In the future I'll try to improve it and add more functions, but for now it's useable for someone like you." Shia swung it around happily while promising herself to thank Alex for the hammer later, conveniently forgetting that it was Hajime that made it. As she was about to ask Grayfia to help her test it out however, a loud sound and an ominous presence appeared from the entryway of the hideout, indicating someone was challenging the hydra. Since they didn't know who was already that far in the labyrinth everyone present rushed towards it to investigate. The sight that greeted them was an eleven years old boy with rabbit ears being stared down by the hydra, clutching his arm as if he was wounded. All of the monsters attention focused on him, driving the boy to cry out in terror as he was about to lose his life.
"Pal!" Shia called out the young boys name, horrified at the situation she was about to witness. Then something happened that would've been unthinkable two weeks ago, her vision turned red and looked at the hydra with murderous intention. She hefted her newly acquired hammer, and prepared to charge the hydra to save her family member, before the collar of her outfit was grabbed and she was forced back while coughing.
"Cough cough, why did you do that Grayfia?! I need to save pal!" Grayfia didn't say anything, instead she just looked across the way at someone else who was in the room, leaning against the entryway into the challenge room was Alex watching the whole thing. Shia was confused for a brief second before it happened, the bullying.
As the hydra attacked the supposedly wounded Pal, he suddenly showed a fierce expression and moved to the side to avoid the attacks, while several shadows suddenly appeared and used the opening to start slashing various areas of the hydra with short-swords. Shia was dumbfounded as she watched the figures expertly and mechanically attack the hydra, each appearing only for a split second to open another wound on the monster before seemingly disappearing into nothing. The hydra roared with its seven heads, angry that the annoyances were avoiding its attack and were stinging it, before the white head started healing the injuries with its magic.
When this happened the shadows halted their attacks for a split second, before moving as a single organism and concentrating all of their efforts onto the white head to eliminate the healer. The shield head moved to intercept their attacks, but it could only focus on so many at one time and was easily outmaneuvered before they swarmed the white head and eliminated it. The rest of the heads grew even angrier, and started releasing tons of random magic attacks to the surroundings. The shadows halted their attacks briefly due to the randomly discharged magic, before the small figure of Pal reappeared in the middle of the room, drawing the hydras attention once more. It wanted to hurt something and the small figure in the middle of the room was perfect since all the others disappeared, however the results were no different than what happened the first time it attacked Pal.
Once it no longer randomly shot off attacks the shadows moved in once more, and without the white head to heal its injuries the hydra was soon covered in dozens of injuries, with the number getting larger by the second. Soon it was unable to support itself any longer, and collapsed. As the surrounding area shuddered with large body hitting the floor, Alex walked out towards the middle of the room while all the shadows that were previously hidden started appearing and lined up in front of him, rabbit ears practically dancing on their heads. Shia watched dumbfoundedly as the family she hadn't seen in two weeks lined up in front of Alex and saluted him, to which he said,
"I suppose I should say good work, you managed to bring down the strongest monster here in the abyss just within the five minutes I gave you... THATS FUCKING PATHETIC! ARE YOU MORONS THAT ONLY AIM FOR "OK"? OR ARE YOU THE HAULIA THAT AIMS FOR THE BEST?!" As Alex's voice rang out in the enclosed space, the entire Haulia answered back,
""""""""""SIR NO SIR! WE ARE ASHAMED SIR!"""""""""""
Everyone else was watching in amazement, or maybe fear, as those timid and cowardly rabbits displayed perfect military order and ruthlessness. Alex on the other hand was admiring his work with pride. In the original series Hajime used borderline cruel and life threatening methods to forcefully reprogram the Haulia, turning them temporarily into murdering psychopaths. While he had undone some of the damage he did, the Haulia were still forever changed; but when Hajime left them to their own devises they then turned into a large group of chunni wannabe badasses, each having come up with their own seconds names like Destroyer and so on. Alex on the other hand used subtler methods like his Devils charm to mold them into his perfect assassins, in other words he basically brainwashed them. In just two weeks he turned them into elite assassins that managed to eliminate anything they encountered in the labyrinth, followers of order and discipline.
Seeing her family like this Shia collapsed to the ground, wondering where her kind and caring family was. Her look was especially filled with nostalgia when looking at Pal, who went from a gentle boy who loved flowers to an elite assassin at only eleven years old. Seeing Shia collapsed on the ground, Alex decided to it was time to deal with the next order of business, and dismissed the Haulia. Shia looked up when she heard someone approaching, and saw Alex walking towards her with a smile on his face.
"Shia there's something important I want to talk to you about, let's head back to the manor and we'll talk there." Shia was confused, but followed after Alex along with Rias, Grayfia, and Yue, Kuroka would have been present as well but she wasn't found anywhere for some reason. As she walked away Cam watched his daughter go with warm eyes, having already been told the contents of their discussion by Alex. Though such a path was different than what the rabbitmen usually believed in, Cam didn't regret his decision to follow Alex as it allowed them to protect their family. He was then pulled out of his thoughts by Hajime walking forward, who then announced,
"Alex had me make proper equipment for you guys, so line up to get them!" As he spoke Hajime pulled small piles of the equipment he was talking about out of the storage ring, and started handing them out to the Haulia. There were new weapons that were sharper and more durable than the ones they took from the empire soldiers, as well as telepathic communication devices he made with a certain metal in the labyrinth. As he was handing out the items Hajime was thinking of a way to get back at Alex, not only did he hide the fact that he was Saiyan for their fight, but he was also taking advantage of the fact that Hajime was now working for him and worked him to the bone(not that what he asked for was too demanding). The thing that annoyed Hajime the most about the situation was that he wanted to check on Kaori but Alex wouldn't let him, only saying it wasn't time yet.
As he was thinking of this Hajime looked at the surrounding Haulia, and an idea came to mind. He didn't know where it came from or why he thought it would work, but he figured it would be petty and annoying enough to return some of the favor to Alex for the last several weeks. He then said out loud to the Haulia since Alex was out of earshot,
"So have any of you given thought of your second names yet?" This caught their attention, and Pal asked,
"What are second names?" Hajime had to stop himself from smiling at the question, the would-have-been demon king then explained to the now attentive rabbits,
"Your second name is the name you become known as, it's your nickname to inspire terror on your opponents! How can you all work for Alex and not have second names?! Even your boss has several names that perfectly describe his strength and majesty!" As they all had quite a bit of free time the past several weeks, Hajime would talk to Rias and the other girls, when they did speak to him, and they told him about some of the things regarding their own world. They also discussed their general background, making Hajime in awe that Rias was really from a high class Devils family, and Grayfia was actually the ex-wife of Satan himself. They had also mentioned each other's aliases, as well as Alex's. As he mentioned that Alex even had a second name the Haulia become more interested, and Hajime said,
"Yeah, apparently in the world he's from he goes by the 'Dragon Emperor', while even some of the girls around him have second names as well. Rias has two, the 'Crimson Haired Ruin Princess' and the 'Princess of Ruin', while the maid Grayfia is known as the 'Strongest Queen' and the 'Silver Haired Queen of Annihilation'." As his words spread through the Haulia like a ripple, they all realized their faults in dishonoring their boss by not having second names. Then one of the rabbitmen girls, named Rana, declared,
"We need to go talk to the boss before they leave tomorrow and ask him about what second names would be good for us!" The rest of the Haulia agreed with her words, but as they were about to leave Hajime stepped in front of them saying,
"No you can't! Think about it, wouldn't Alex be disappointed if you can't come up with your own second names and ask him to do so? You should keep quiet about it until he next comes back or calls for you, and surprise him with your new names!" They all stirred again and agreed with Hajime's words, deciding to wait until they next saw their boss before declaring their awesome second names to him, causing Hajime to smile evilly.